Call me old

Call me old, call me old-fashioned if you like but I think that routine is important. It’s all about expectations, the rhythm of life and knowing where you stand with people. For this reason – and no other I can think of whatsoever – I enjoy continuing the long tradition of my kind; to greet people with a gift at the door.

As you know, my hearing is fading fast to the point that I am at last getting a little peace and quiet. Perhaps a little too much but have no fear, it is interrupted most brutally from time to time. And here is my dilemma. It’s a tricky balance to achieve; if I don’t wait by the door, I’ve no idea when they’ve come in and they start shouting ‘Hello Monty!’ repeatedly in my face and slapping me on the shoulders. If I do wait there, I get bashed to bits when the door opens so it’s a lose-lose situation.

I suppose that it’s nearly retirement time. For my entire life I’ve collected an array of different items for the greeting gift: shoes, slippers, a naked doll which startled a passer-by who, viewing through the open door with poor eyesight thought the worst, dirty socks, junk mail, kitchen implements, the little girl’s transitional object which I resist referring to as ‘Katie’, crumbling, abstract Lego models and an assortment of cuddly toys. It’s a generational thing, you know and I’d be the first to admit that there is a certain amount of weirdness attached to this practice. One thing I do know is that I’m not alone because I once heard her comparing notes with her friend.

I wonder if her friend’s dog has the same problems as I do: tidier uppers. How am I supposed to do my job properly when I can’t find anything? Is it any wonder I’m permanently exhausted? I bet she wouldn’t like it if, when she was about to sit down to some writing, I hid her laptop in a cupboard.

Anyway, it’s been my job for 92 years and maybe it’s time to ease off a bit. As long as She doesn’t take it as a sign that I don’t need walking anymore. Just because I can’t hear or because my eyesight is a little cloudy, doesn’t mean that I can’t I think. It doesn’t mean that I don’t hear the birds singing, the rabbits scurrying into the undergrowth and the peacocks screeching like monkeys. I can smell the honeysuckle and that tells me that all these things are out there so that I can paper the inside of my head with pictures of days gone by. I still appreciate things. I still appreciate everyone; that’s what Labradors do, we’re eager to please. I hope She understands that. I hope she understands that one day I won’t be here, looking for something to bring to her, not even in the background. There’s irony for you; you spend your whole life looking for something that isn’t there and then one day you’re not there. She’ll be sad. They all will.

Mind you, the other morning I think I offended her. She came downstairs early and sat down. Evidently, I didn’t hear her (this story has been recounted many times) and the first clue I gave as to my continuing existence in this world was when I lifted my nose into the air, followed the trail of scent (the smell) in an arc towards the sofa. Of course, I was then able to get up and look appreciative – and let’s face it, at my age, every morning you wake up is a bonus – but I think it was too late. The damage was done: either she knows I’m decrepit or I’m seen as some sort of miscreant. As I said, a lose-lose situation.